Saturday, Trump met with a very high-level military man: Four-Star General James Mattis , former head of the U.S. Central Command, Unified Combatant Command and U.S. Joint Forces Command, as well as being Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.

On the issue of torture, Mr. Trump suggested he had changed his mind about the value of waterboarding after talking with James N. Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, who headed the United States Central Command.

“He said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful,’” Mr. Trump said. He added that Mr. Mattis found more value in building trust and rewarding cooperation with terrorism suspects: “‘Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and I’ll do better.’”

“I was very impressed by that answer,” Mr. Trump said.

Torture, he said, is “not going to make the kind of a difference that a lot of people are thinking.”